This undercover hack’s attempt to take down the Jeremy Kyle Show is a riveting read

Lots of people have been saying ITV should have cancelled it years ago.

I tried to hold Jeremy Kyle show to account and I failed. I witnessed it endangering life of vulnerable mentally ill young man. And now a guest is dead. This is sanctioned abuse & bullying that’s been in plain sight for yearshttps://t.co/aKS4o25Cah

Now radio presenter and journalist Tom Latchem has shared his own account of when he went undercover on the show.

Here’s what he said on Twitter.

In the week the godawful Jeremy Kyle show was axed, here is an amusing, if somewhat fruitless, story about how I could have ended the show 10 years ago when I came close to planting a fake guest on it to test their security checks while working for the News of the World….

It all started on Christmas Day 2009 (I think) when I got the actress I’d roped in to phone up the show with a made-up but realistic story about how she was a hairdresser (or something) being controlled by her boyfriend, who wouldn’t let her leave the house without his say so…

I knew what the producers of a show like Jeremy Kyle would go for so the actress I recruited was very attractive. She was bang up for doing something so mischevious and fun – even though her boyfriend was a journo on another newspaper…

When I asked how he would react seeing his girlfriend on the TV pretending to be in a relationship with anothrr guy in a sting for another newspaper her response was brilliant: “Fuck it – I don’t care if he dumps me, I don’t even like him anyway.” (To be fair he was a knob)…

In the message my plant used a shortened version of her name, as my boss felt it only fair to give the producers a chance to rumble our plan to properly test their security, but laid on the emotion in this this fake story…

As predicted, not long after Christmas, a Jeremy Kyle producer rang up my play to say how awful my plant’s story sounded and they would like to ger her and her controlling boyfriend on the show. BINGO! But now the hard work started…

Next we recruited the “boyfriend” – a friend of friend of my plant and notably NOT an actor – who came along with his friend, while my role was to be my plant’s friend after my boss decided I should be there to oversee it all. However, this was probably ultimately our downfall…

As there are only two Tom Latchems in the UK, I had to go under an assumed name. I plumped for Tom Kelly (my mum’s maiden name) and was to be a chavvy van driver with a dodgy Estuary accent. Unfortunately, I’m a far worse actor than a journalist – and that’s saying something…

So the four of us headed to Manchester, where we would spend the night in a grotty city centre hotel the night before filming. En route the producers called us saying we needed to bring photo ID. Ah. Given I was NOT, nor had ever been, Tom Kelly, this was a problem…

I told them my passport was at my parent’s home in Taunton meaning I wasn’t able to get it. As I was unable to provide ID, they said they would need to speak to three members of each of our families or friends to confirm we were who we claimed to be…

This was fine for the other three plants, as they were (pretty much) who they said they were, although their relatives and friends all had to be briefed to lie that this cock and bull story was in fact true…

The latter two were fine, as my brother just said he was Chris Kelly from Bournemouth, and my flatmate was my actual flatmate, and they both said I was who I claimed to be. But as my dad’s name is not Dan Kelly, that was harder to sort, so I pretended a colleague was my dad…

Things almost went wrong when they rang my “dad” and asked for his address – and he obviously didn’t live in Taunton. Thankfully he was quick-witted (hence he worked at the NOTW) and told them he “didn’t know if his wife would be happy” for him to give out those details…

He asked them to give him five minutes while he “asked his wife” – and then found a Dan Kelly of about the right age in Taunton on the electoral roll and rang the producers back with an address. Phew, crisis averted…

So we spent the night in this crumbly hotel and headed in to the ITV studio the next morning to film the segment, me dressed in one of my old stripey Paul & Shark football hooligan jumpers for ultimate chavvy effect, and my plant in a revealing outfit…

With everyone briefed on the story, and singing from the same hymn sheet, we were prepped for the shiw in the dressing room by producers. At one point my plant asked if she could hit her partner on TV, and the response? “That would be brilliant!”

It was at that point Jeremy Kyle came in to meet us. As a journalist himself he was no mug and he shook our hands, while staring into our eyes – and he lingered on me. I could tell he didn’t believe we were who we said. I thought that would be it for us. Again – wrong…

We were then taken on set and I watched as this “couple” – only one of whom was an actor – put in a masterclass in bullshit. She even slapped her “boyfriend” in the face and he took it. At one point my plant was in tears as Kyle ripped her for not standing up to her partner…

I honestly couldn’t believe our plan was working and they were actually filming it. I was getting giddy in the audience at the idea we were about to pull off the most amazing scoop while trying not to show it…

The segment ended with the “couple” agreeing to give things a go and even snogging on camera. We were then taken back to the dressing rooms where the “couple” were all over each other as part of the act and given “aftercare”. However, I was placed in a separate room, alone…

I waited… And waited… And waited… An hour went by and by then I knew something was up. But was when I overheard security talking about “calling the police” that I truly shit my pants. It would’ve reflected terribly on me & the paper to have been caught. And so, I decided…

To make a dash for it! I told the security guarding my door that I wanted to leave. When he asked why I told him they had no right to keep me there and I wanted to go home, before pushing past him and heading for the exit…

Not far behind was my plant. Apparently while they’d been holding her and her “partner”, a producer came in with her ID and accused her of being the actor. Time for a sharp exit… And so we found ourselves running through Manchester city centre laughing like giddy schoolkids…

Naturally they never screened the episode, and so Jeremy Kyle lived to fight another day. And, fair play to them, they did have in place proper security checks, even if they were morally dubious in other areas…..

So hang on, the story is that you planned an elaborate hoax to expose the Jeremy Kyle show and it’d lack of scrutiny. Only for the show to rumble you because they did do checks. Bit of a non-story really.